Isabelle de Beauvau


Isabelle de Beauvau or Isabeau de Beauvau was a French noblewoman, of the Beauvau family, lady of Champigny and de la Roche-sur-Yon, countess of Vendôme by her marriage. She is the trisaïeule of King Henry IV of France and Catherine de' Medici, her great-granddaughter.

Early life

Isabelle was the only child of Count Louis de Beauvau and his first wife, Marguerite de Chambley, a woman of noble birth from Lorraine.
Isabelle's lineage made her valuable to René of Anjou, who was dealing with a succession crisis over the duchy of Lorraine. He was trying to strengthen ties with Lorraine's nobility which is why her name appears with those of her mother and Yolande, Duchess of Lorraine, in a handwritten collection of poems by Alain Chartier offered to Marie de Clèves. Other than that not much is known about Isabelle's childhood; her marriage negotiations started before she was eighteen and she was raised a catholic. She had one half-sister, Alix de Beauvau, who was legitimized when her father remarried.

Marriage and becoming Countess

Isabelle married John VIII, Count of Vendôme, on 9 November 1454 at Angers, thus becoming the Countess of Vendôme. As a courtier of King Charles VII of France, her husband he fought the English in Normandy and Guyenne leaving her to supervise the council and oversee the royal affairs she went into confinement many times and met many women during those times and was therefore favored by the women of lavardin she and her husband had a good relationship and had eight children:
Isabelle died giving birth to her last daughter. She is buried in the Saint-George collegiate church in Vendôme, the Bourbon Vendôme necropolis, which has since disappeared. Through her third daughter she was great grandmother to the French nobility. She is most remembered for the poem by Alain Chartier to Marie of Cleves.